Hill directs Texas All-State Jazz Ensemble

Fine Arts Center director Willie L. Hill was invited recently to the 2013 Texas Music Educators Association Clinic/Convention, where he taught a clinic and conducted the Texas All-State Jazz Ensemble.

 

More than 26,000 people attend what is considered to be the largest music education conference in the country. Hill gave a clinic on jazz ensemble rehearsal techniques and conducted the All-State Jazz Ensemble in a stellar concert. Only 20 members were chosen for this ensemble comprised of the best young jazz talent in Texas.

Begun in 1920 as the Texas Band Teachers Association, the Texas Music Educators Association is an organization of more than 10,000 school music educators dedicated to promoting excellence in music education. TMEA is comprised of five divisions: band, orchestra, vocal, elementary and college. More than 64,000 music students throughout Texas auditioned for the All-State Honor Groups.

A professor in Music Education, Hill previously taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was assistant dean at the College of Music. He was also director of education for the Thelonious Monk Institute in Los Angeles. Hill also taught instrumental music for 16 years and served as instrumental music supervisor for four years in the Denver Public Schools.
 

Hill received the Lawrence Berk Leadership Award presented in 2001 by the International Association for Jazz Education. In 1998, he was inducted into the Colorado Music Educators Hall of Fame, and in 2008 he was inducted into Grambling State University’s Hall of Fame. Hill is a national artist/clinician for Yamaha Musical Instrument Company, and he has authored and co-authored several texts on jazz history and pedagogy.